


Proper Proposal

by DictionaryWrites



Category: James Bond - All Media Types, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 15:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2512898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Requested: Bond proposes unexpectedly. Q reacts accordingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proper Proposal

Q is working when Bond enters his office. The department is empty for the time being – it's just a little past four in the morning, and there's barely anyone at all in MI6, let alone in an experimental department with no need for anyone on the ground.

Q is in all the same, at his desk working through sheet after sheet of inane and useless babble.

Christ, he's got the worst of health and bloody _safety_ paperwork as all the quartermasters over the years have been concerned.

“Don't suppose I can offer you a lift home?” Q glances up; on Bond's forehead is a new cut, recently stapled shut, and he looks tired. Q is glad for the distance between them, as he imagines the scent of gunpowder and sweat is _terribly_ overpowering.

“Your car _survived_?” He queries, an eyebrow raising, and Bond shrugs.

“There's more than one car in London.” Q snorts, and then he decides he doesn't hate himself enough to work until five, so he drops the last piece of paper onto the stack and stands up, stretching his arms above his head and arching his back to draw some of the tension from his back.

“That much is _true_ , 007.” Q agrees grudgingly, and he takes a step forwards; his nostrils flare, and he regrets getting any closer to James Bond, post-mission. As if to add insult to injury, mingled in with the more _natural_ assaults to one's olfactory sense is some sort of awful cologne. “You will take a shower, I hope, before you come to bed with me.”

Bond smiles at Q _smugly_ , even more smugly than usual, and Q feels slightly uncertain. There's something here that Bond has planned – or is planning – and he's not yet revealed or hinted at it. Q stops short, frowning, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“ _What_?” Nine months, they've been involved _more_ than professionally. Nine months, and Q has learned to read 007 far better than he'd ever had care to. One could hardly call their _dates_ traditional, but they're certainly enjoyable.

Q's never met another man who's been romanced with a Walther dragging (disturbingly pleasantly) over the line of his jaw.

“Just brought something back from Paris for you.” Bond says, and he takes two steps forwards, confidently, his feet moving well over the floor. He reaches into his breast pocket, and Q is momentarily excited; the last time it'd been a rather impressive hard drive chock- _full_ of enthralling information behind entertaining codes.

Bond draws out a velvet box, and Q rolls his eyes.

“Oh, for Christ's sake. _No._ I don't care what you've bought me, Bond, I will not _pierce_ -” Q's mouth drops open as Bond flicks it open. It's a ring. It's a bloody _ring._ James bloody _Bond_ has bought him a bloody _ring_ , a _ring_ with an opal in the centre. “What is _that_?” Q asks, voice lowly threatening and one any of the others in MI6 would learn to recognize as dangerous.

“It's a ring.” Bond supplies, unhelpfully. “From Paris.”

“And it contains some sort of hidden USB drive for me to work with?” Q asks.

“No.” Bond says in a light, pleasant tone. Q feels the urge, as he so often does, to punch the old man in the face, but alas, violence is not his forté. He'll ask 003 tomorrow morning to do it for him. “It's an engagement ring.”

“Finally going to make an honest man of Tanner?”

“Q-” Bond begins, and Q won't _have_ it, he won't _allow_ it.

“No.” Bond raises an eyebrow.

“I've not asked yet.” He says innocently, and Q feels somewhat like being sick.

“Don't even ask it. My answer is no.” He says sharply, firmly, and Bond's expression is schooled into something of neutrality; he's very upset, though of course the master spy can't show _that._

“Q,” Bond begins.

“ _No._ ” Q spits at him.

“Will you marry me?”

“Are you absolutely _mad!?_ ” Q snaps at him, and he all but _snarls_ at the other man. Bond doesn't recoil, but Q sees the shift in the dilation of his pupils, sees the ever so slight part of his lips. “No. It's a no. I shan't marry you, and the idea of marrying you is completely horrific.”

Something shifts in Bond's jaw: he'd imagined Q would swoon and fall into his arms, he supposes. Idiot. Q turns on his heel, throwing his lab coat irritably over the back of his chair and then walking past Bond to grasp his coat from the back of his door.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm going home, Bond. Don't need a lift.”

“Q.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Bond, can you not gather why I'm _angry_ instead of falling faint with happiness?” Q turns back to him, and regards Bond with an expression of sternness. “Selfishness is not a crime. In fact, I quite believe it can be terribly useful to know when selfishness is the way forwards, _howver_ , this is the single most obscenely self-centred thing you have ever asked of me.”

“A marriage is between two-”

“A master spy marrying his quartermaster, yes, very romantic.” Q interrupts him sharply. “Romantic with a capital R, I'd go so far as to say. And when one wants to _rattle_ the master spy, who comes to mind? His family are gone. Picking someone from his organization would be useless, even one of those he has sex with now and then. But a _husband_ , oh!” He doesn't care at all about his mocking tone, refuses to feel guilt for cutting into Bond like this. “Perfect target.”

“You would be protected.” Bond says seriously. Perhaps he even means it. It's not naivety, Q knows: it's self-deception, pure and simple. Bloody spies with their compartmentalization.

“We'd need witnesses. My _name_ would be on marriage certificates.” Q says, and suddenly he feels exhausted. He wants to go home, to bed, and for once after a long time apart, he has no wish for Bond to be anywhere near him.

“I'd know it, then.” Bond says, and Q rolls his eyes; he can't care for joking right now.

“You were thinking of an official ceremony, weren't you?” Q asks, grimly. “Right here in headquarters – bet you would have invited the _Queen._ ” Bond doesn't react to that, out of pure and complete stubbornness.

“If I throw this ring in the fire, may I still come home with you?” Q glances at the clock. Four forty two.

“No.” Q says. Bond, training aside, falters. “But if, when I disable the counters, you go and put the box open in the middle of Mallory's desk to find when he comes in tomorrow morning, washed of prints and DNA particles by that machine in the corner, you can.”

Bond looks to the machine, and then at Q; he grins. “And it will be forgotten?” Bond presses. Q clucks his tongue.

“Not forgotten. You're not so stupid as to think I could forget something like _this._ ” Q murmurs, in a quiet enough tone. “The reason humans share their thoughts with one another, though, might I remind you, is so that a dialogue is formed. So that one's mistakes can be corrected, and that the lofty feather coats of one's more _ridiculous_ fantasies might be trimmed into something more realistic.”

“And so that one doesn't think of other people as _mannequins_ in one's own fantasy.” Bond supplies the next part of Q's sentence, and the quartermaster gives an incline of his head.

“Quite.” Q says, and he feels relief flow through his chest. “Now, 007, chop chop on the last mission of the evening.” Q adds with a nod in the machine's direction, and then he aims a smirk in Bond's direction that promises seduction _and_ satisfaction in equal measure. “I promise you, your reward will be _quite_ suitable.”

“And unprofessional?”

“Oh, Agent _Bond,_ ” Q purrs, and a ghost of his pleasure to see Bond after a week apart returns to him, even mingled in with lingering worry. “What sort of man do you take me for?”

 


End file.
